âEvery synthesis becomes a new thesis, which becomes the target of a new antithesis.â âThis antithesis found its synthesis in Stoicism, the philosophy of both master and slaveâ¦ and so on.â âIt is also to be noted that the dialectical process is not simply from thesis and antithesis to final synthesis; it is an eternal, open-ended spiral of development.â
By the time of the American Revolution, settlers were exporting 66 million pounds of rice a year. Indigo became South Carolinaâs second most important early crop. Indigo production merged nicely with rice production on many plantations. But when that market dried up, planters shifted to cotton.
Cotton farming dominated Georgia's antebellum economy, but by the mid-1830s declining prices fueled by overproduction led some to seek alternatives to agriculture's boom-and-bust cycles. Industrial development offered one such alternative, and a flurry of investment enabled a number of nascent industries to appear throughout the state.